Search smh:

Search in:

Obama urged to act on Syria

David Lerman, Roger Runningen

Hesitant to acknowledge Syria's use of chemical weapons as a war crime: US President Barack Obama. Photo: AP

Legislators in the United States are pressing President Barack Obama to act against the Syrian regime for its suspected use of chemical weapons.

Mr Obama said that the intelligence must be corroborated, while reiterating that confirmation would be a ''game-changer'' for the US.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has accused the Syrian regime of a ''war crime'' as evidence emerged of two more gas attacks that have poisoned another 105 people.

Asked about reports that President Bashar al-Assad's forces had used chemical weapons, Mr Cameron said: ''What I see does look very much like a war crime is being committed in our world, at this time, by the Syrian government.''

Advertisement

The latest incidents took place on Thursday in the southern town of Daraya, according to the Syrian Support Group (SSG), a Washington-based organisation representing the Free Syrian Army. The regime's forces fired two "chemical-filled" rockets which released a poisonous gas affecting 105 people.

Demands in Congress have ranged from Republican senator John McCain's push to establish a no-fly zone and provide weapons to Syria's opposition, to Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein's call to take the matter to the United Nations.

Debate over Syria was given new impetus by the administration's disclosure on Thursday that intelligence agencies had assessed with ''varying degrees of confidence'' that Mr Assad's regime had used chemical munitions on a small scale in two instances.

Mr Obama said on Friday: ''There are a range of questions around how, when, where these weapons may have been used. We have to make these assessments deliberately, but I think all of us - not just in the United States, but around the world - recognise how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations.''

In the Syrian government's first response to the findings, Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said: ''the fabricated and false'' allegations ''do not have any credibility'', reported the Sana news agency. The regime has said chemical weapons have been used by ''terrorists'', its blanket description for the opposition.

Mr Obama has never said what action he would take if Syria crossed what he's called a ''red line'' against the use of toxic agents.

Mr McCain, of Arizona, renewed what he called a two-year effort to persuade the administration ''to provide a safe area for the opposition to operate, to establish a no-fly zone and provide weapons to people in the resistance whom we trust''.

Representative Tom Rooney of Florida, a Republican member of the House intelligence committee, disagreed and echoed the administration's concern that funneling arms into the volatile region may backfire.

''The easy thing would be to help the rebels, but the reality of the situation is'' that many of them are ''the people we have been fighting for the last 10 years,'' he said, referring to groups of Islamic extremists associated with al-Qaeda. ''We should be very careful how we proceed.''

For Mr Obama, the challenge remains what to do if the administration comes to the conclusion that his ''red line'' has been crossed.

''He doesn't want to get involved in another war in the Middle East,'' said Richard Murphy, a former US ambassador to Syria and adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. ''The question is, when you set a red line, do you stand behind it?''